Michigan

Verlander roughed up as Cleveland routs Tigers

AP PhotoTigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander rubs a new baseball after giving up a two-run home run to Cleveland's Ryan Garko in the fifth inning Thursday.

CLEVELAND -- Their teams are at the bottom of the standings, and so are they.

Yes, it's early, but it's also crazy. The teams with the two worst records in the American League are the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland, and the AL pitchers who have given up the most runs are C.C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander.

Sure enough, the Tigers and Indians split their first two games of the season. Sure enough, Sabathia was the loser in a Tigers rout Wednesday, and Verlander took it on the chin in an 11-1 Cleveland win Thursday.

Sabathia, the defending Cy Young winner, is 0-3 with a 13.50 ERA. Verlander, some people's pick to be the next Cy Young, is 0-3 with a 7.03 ERA.

What's going on here?

TRACKING THE TIGERS

• Thursday's game: Justin Verlander gave up five runs in five innings, and the Tigers made the least of their chances against Fausto Carmona in an 11-1 loss to the Indians. Ryan Garko and Travis Hafner homered for Cleveland, with Hafner's home run coming in an ugly five-run sixth against reliever Zach Miner.

• Record: 5-11

• Taking care: Maybe you considered it odd that manager Jim Leyland pinch-hit Ryan Raburn for Magglio Ordonez with the bases loaded and two out in the seventh inning Thursday. But Leyland likes to give some of his regulars a few innings off when the Tigers are far behind (they trailed 10-1 at the time), and also said he was thinking ahead because the Tigers play the next four games in Toronto on artificial turf. Ordonez and Edgar Renteria are the only Tigers who have played in each of the first 16 games.

"It's four starts in," Verlander said, after giving up five runs in five innings Thursday. "I think the reason guys like C.C. and me are good is because over the long haul you turn things around and figure things out. I think at the end of the season, things will be where they're supposed to be.

"But obviously, this isn't the start I'd have liked."

This one start wasn't one Verlander liked, either. He believes he pitched better than his results the first three times out, but not Thursday, when his command was off right from the first pitch.

He needed 22 pitches to get through a scoreless first inning, then threw 30 in Cleveland's three-run third. The Tigers probably should have scored more runs than they did against Indians starter Fausto Carmona, but the way Verlander and the relievers pitched, it probably wouldn't have mattered.

Cleveland has never been Verlander's favorite opponent, and Progressive Field was never kind to him even when it was known as Jacobs Field. In his last five starts against the Indians, Verlander is 1-4 with a 9.45 ERA, and in his last four starts in Cleveland he's given up 8, 7, 7 and now 5 runs.

"He's got great stuff," said Cleveland first baseman Ryan Garko, who homered off Verlander on Thursday. "I guess we just get lucky sometimes."

Verlander wonders why that is, but the hitters who gave him the most trouble Thursday actually aren't ones who have hurt him much in the past. And the more immediate issue is that for just the second time in his career, Verlander has now gone four starts without winning.

The Indians feel that Sabathia isn't as messed up as his numbers indicate, either. The word is that he's not hurt, and that they can see on video that there's something wrong, but fixable, with his delivery.

Maybe by the next time the Tigers and Indians meet, the first weekend of June at Comerica Park, Sabathia and Verlander will be closer to the top than the bottom.

Perhaps their teams will be, too.

"The Indians will be fine, just like we will be," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said when this series began.

Chances are, he's right. It's early, after all.

It still seems crazy that neither team is fine now. And that neither team's ace is fine, either.